Game, Set, Match
by Savage Midnight
Summary: Their marriage had been a game and she’d been a willing player, until now.


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Title: "Game, Set, Match"  
**Author:** Savage Midnight  
**Email:** savage_midnight@hotmail.com  
**Website:** See profile  
**Rating:** G  
**Disclaimer:** Any characters/concepts familiar to the Smallville universe belong to the creators of the show.  
**Summary:** Their marriage had been a game and she'd been a willing player, until now.  
**Authors note: **This is just a small, angsty future-fic I wrote between writing the chapters for "Befallen" and the sequel to "A Weekend Made For Two". Pure Chlex.

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He was late and her bags were already packed.

Chloe Sullivan stood alone in the large hallway, gazing absently at the marble floor beneath her feet. A single, black suitcase sat beside her, containing only the bare necessities, scarce of all the luxuries she'd grown accustomed to over the years.

There was only one luxury she had truly enjoyed, but nowadays such a thing was a rarity. Another year and it would no longer be a part of her glamorous lifestyle.

Funny, that it turned out like this. She was leaving the same way she'd came in, except she was a little more empty now, a little more bitter. The years had worn her down, and although it had done nothing to erase her charismatic beauty, her internal glow had faded along with her husbands capability to feel.

At first his ever-growing coldness to the world had not concerned her. With her there was only warmth within him, only deep-set, unconditional love that he lavished on her alone. It was a love that would survive the ages, he'd said, a love not even his father could break. 

He'd lied and she hadn't cared. Marriage had become a game and she'd been a willing player, because after all, wasn't marriage about sacrifice? About compromise?

Not anymore. She'd sacrificed too much and now she barely had anything left. Tonight had been his last chance to give back what he had stolen from her and he'd thrown that chance away in favour of power. And it was now, tonight, that Chloe finally saw her husband for what he truly was.

Lex Luthor was his fathers son. A little more cruel, a little less compassionate, but still the very man that he had vowed never to become.

It was ironic, in some sick, twisted way, and all Chloe was left with was one dark, hopeless question that would never be answered: why hadn't she seen it coming?

Because her love for him, no matter how strong, no matter how passionate, had stemmed from deception, from betrayal and heartache and deep-set bitterness. Clark had shattered her fragile, teenage heart, and she'd vowed revenge. In return she'd gained a willing companion in Lex Luthor and together they had shared that darkness, that growing hatred for the innocent farmboy, whose secret they had learnt through deception and not trust. And from there a unique friendship had blossomed into a comfortable, convenient love that had been more a necessity than a privelege. In a way it had been a thoughtless ploy to cut Clark from their lives, but within this unintentional plan had grown a devotion towards one another, a tender love that was a mockery of the very thing that made them who they were.

Chloe Sullivan had never planned to fall in love with Lex Luthor, but she had never questioned it. There had been no need to.

She had ignored the changes in her husband because she had never been in a position to question his faults when hers alone had indirectly destroyed lives. She left him to his darkness and his hatred and she waited within the cold rooms of the mansion until he returned to relight the fire within that was constantly burnt out and reflamed, burnt out and reflamed. 

Beneath his cold, compassionless surface had lain trust for her alone, and a constant lust for the love she held for him, a lust that rivalled her own in so many, many ways. And in the beginning she had believed in it, had trusted in it and relied on it to keep her husband alive and warm beneath her fingertips.

And in the end it had been too late to see that the very good she saw in him - the passion, the love - had all been a lie, because Lex Luthor had learnt one trick that his father had not; he had taught his heart how to lie.

For almost twenty years he had feigned the warmth she believed had lain between them. The warm, soft kisses and tender caresses had been an illusion, a twisted plan that had hatched within his cold, calculating mind. He had not trusted her, he had trusted in the deception and the betrayal and the darkness that had bound them, that had made them who they were. He had only trusted in the very thing he knew lived within both of them, because as the years had passed, it had been the only thing left.

Not for her. Not anymore. They may have shared a common ground but Chloe had truly believed in the lies he had weaved into their marriage. And then the lies had begun to untangle and with each dark truth that escaped she had felt a little more empty and a little less alive. She couldn't - wouldn't - live like that.

Chloe believed she had a second chance, a chance to redeem herself and salvage the remaining shards of her shattered life. And just as she believed it was possible for her, she believed it was possible for Lex.

So she had offered him a second chance.

Tonight had been their wedding anniversary - eighteen years that marked the very age in which she had married. 

That morning she had turned to face the pale flesh of her husbands back and she had told him in a soft, tired voice that he was to come home early tonight, that she had a surprise for him. And she had dropped feather-light hints that, though vague, she knew her husband would have no problem comprehending. 

Beneath the gentle whisper of her voice had lain a promise - if you do not come home, than neither shall I.

And just as she had known, he hadn't. She'd known he wouldn't, even when she was bathing and dressing and styling, but she'd never stopped, merely prayed and prayed until her head had hummed with her pleas.

__

Come home, come home, please God, come home...

It still hummed now as she stood silently in the hallway, still dressed in the same gown she'd worn on their wedding night, her golden mane curled and pinned by the two diamond clips he had brought her for their first anniversary.

And this was it, her second chance, and even though she'd made no move, she'd already made her choice. She'd made it the second she'd woken up to face the hard wall of husbands back. That small, simple act had spoken volumes and it had screamed at her, whispered horrible little truths to her that had brought silent, bitter tears to her eyes.

She had known, right there, that if she stayed any longer she would die, and death was the one thing Chloe Sullivan was not prepared for. She'd already sacrificed far too much for her husband; she'd be damned if she sacrificed her own life.

A second later she bent to pick up her suitcase. She strode gracefully across the hard marble of the hallway and just as she was moving to grasp the doorhandle of the large, oak door, it swung open before her.

And just to make life a little more difficult, her husband stepped across the threshold.

He glanced down at the suitcase in her hand and then back up at her, eyebrow arched in a mocking salute. He stepped past her, towards the staircase, and called back over his shoulder, "lock the door on your way out."

And that was it. That was all that was left to say and she knew, just as he did, what he had meant by those seven words: you are, and will never be, a part of my life again.

He didn't even bother to look back when she stepped across the threshold, out of the gloom of the mansion and into the amber-grey of the pre-dawn light. She never faltered as she trod steadily down the drive way, but before she could stop herself she turned to look back...

... one. last. time.


End file.
